Can they be changed with the motor still in the car (2000 C5) and do i need to do bearings if I change the bolts?

 

I swapped them out in my Camaro while I changed the k-member (bolts only). I have only done it in F-bodies, you will need to support the engine & drop the pan.

 

There's been a lot of threads on this and a lot have done it. I did it on my 99 C5. I used the ARP Pro series bolts, but if I were to do it again I would use the Katechs. The controversy about this is ARP recommends resizing the rods when changing bolts, Katech doesn't.

 

Does anybody know about how long it takes to swap them out on car??

 

so how did you do it on your c5. Do you have to drop the cradel? How labor intence is it. THX

 

Ask Lithium how to change them.

 

how much would you expect to pay for a rod bolt swap??? b/c ive been quote 800 bucks and if that isnt the biggest load of **** i have ever heard i dont know what is, but just would like to know everyone elses cost to do it??

 

Yes you have to drop the cradle. In doing that you have to support the motor from the top. I did mine on a lift and built a 'crane' out of a battery storage shelf. They are made to withstand lots of weight, pallets of batteries. Then I used a pair of 20,000 lb, nylon holddowns, wrapped them around my headers and the 'crane' cross member that I put above my hood, loosened the motor mount bolts, and jacked up the motor about 3/4" off the cradle. I measured the space between the bottom of the motor mount and the cradle and went home. I came back the next day, measured again and there was no change so I dropped the cradle, removed the oil pan and windage tray and the rod bolts were right there. Make sure you have a new oil pan gasket, and prepthe oil pan mating sufaces to get them as clean as possible. Also have some RTV for sealing the front and back cover corners.
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You won't need to put new main bearings in or resize the rods, especially with Katech bolts.
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Do a search on ferrules. You will get a LOT of useful info to use BEFORE you start this project.
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It's labor intensive. I took me 2 6 hour days to do this. I have Kooks headers and getting to one of the bolts between the headers and the block almost rendered the job undoable. I was lucky to have a 72 tooth grearwrench in the size I needed and I was able to get it off 1 click at a time. It took me the better part of an hour. All in all it wasn't that bad. I had a friend helping me and we took our time.
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I will tell you that I was nervous with the whole drive train hanging on those hold-downs with the car up in the air but the setup held up well. You could get a Kent-Moore bar to hold the motor up but it costs like $1000 for the setup. You take the coolant overflow tank and washer tank off the fenders and this bolts onto the top of the shock towers. Then you have to mount these Kent-Moore engine lifting brakets to the side of the engine and hooks from the bar go into the brakets. You then turn the lifting bolts on the end of the hooks and the engine lifts up n the hooks and onto the bar. It was too expensive for me since I was only going to use it once so I went with the straps.

 

if you dont mind me askin is there a specific reason om why you are changing your rod bolts? ive heard the stock ones are questionable around 6800 rpms but is this the reason for the swap. and the rod bearings, i would definately inspect them while you have the rods unbolted..... but make sure to keep track of which rod they came off of or do one rod at a time

 

so has anyone changed the bearrings while doing the rod bolts, if so what needs to be done to do so?

 

Well, minus disconnecting the driveshaft, trans crossmember, and disconnecting the PCM...and a few other 5 minute disconnections...you just removed a motor.